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Yesterday's announcement of the Apple iPad -- basically an iPhone with a larger screen and no camera -- ushered in a new era for OS design. That is, an OS that was originally designed for a phone (the "iPhone OS", which is itself a stripped down version of Mac OS X), is now being ported over to larger, much more capable devices. I have no doubt that the iPhone OS will be very successful on the iPad. It would not surprise me to see it running on laptops and desktops in the near future. This simplified OS eliminates most of the complexity that makes people hate computers: the quagmire of configuration options, keeping up with upgrades, and of course the constant battle against viruses and malware. When I first saw the iPad, I immediately recognized that this is going to be the perfect computer for "non-computer users", like my dear mother-in-law, who pretty much only uses her Windows PC to read email and surf the web. (I'm not sure she's ever saved a file…

I may be jumping the gun a bit here, but with this WSJ article on the potential pricing models for e-books on the Apple Tablet, I am very worried about the future of e-books. Books used to be these paper things that you could get just about anywhere, not require a specialized device to read, lend to your friends, borrow from a library, scribble in, or use to prop a door open. It seems clear that paper books are about to go the same route as the compact disc, but the e-book industry is getting it all wrong by tying themselves to proprietary, closed formats that only work on certain devices from certain vendors. It seems like I hear about a new e-book reader every day on sites like Engadget, but every vendor has the same problem: getting content and agreements with the publishers to support their device. Amazon has done a great job establishing those relationships for the Kindle, and now it seems Apple is going to have to do the same legwork for their tablet. It seems inevitable that we…

What was the first sensor network? Thinking back, I bet most people would guess the early demos by Berkeley and UCLA at places like the Intel Developer's Forum; the Twentynine Palms air-dropped mote demo; and Great Duck Island. These were all around 2002 or so. It turns out this is off by about 35 years -- the first bona fide wireless sensor network was actually deployed in Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in 1967. It was called Igloo White.

I've been doing a lot of reading about Igloo White lately, and while most of the information on the program is still classified, there are a bunch of articles, books, and a few websites that provide some useful details. Igloo White was a system designed to use seismic and acoustic sensors to detect PAVN movements along the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, through Laos, and into South Vietnam (thereby skirting the DMZ). It consisted of wireless sensors, typically dropped from helicopters and aircraft. In all nearly 30,000 sensors w…

I've recently had two conference submissions "rejected with prejudice" for violating the formatting requirements. In both cases, it was because the lead grad student on the paper didn't read the call for papers carefully enough. (I'll take my share of the blame for not checking it, but sometimes it's pretty hard to check without pulling out a ruler and counting lines of text by hand.) Now, I totally agree with those papers being rejected: it's essential that papers adhere to the formatting requirements. On the other hand, it certainly does not help that every conference uses slightly different guidelines. Here's a typical formatting convention:Submitted papers must be no longer than 14 single-spaced pages, including figures, tables, and references. Papers should be formatted in 2 columns, using 10 point type on 12 point leading, in a text block of 6.5" by 9".Another one:Submissions must be full papers, at most 14 sing…

Should CS grad students be required to receive formal training in lab technique?

In most scientific disciplines, a great deal of attention is paid to proper experimental design, data collection, and analysis. A grad student in chemistry or biology learns to adhere to a fairly rigid set of procedures for running an experiment (and documenting the procedure). In CS, we largely assume that grad students (not to mention professors and undergrads) somehow magically know how to do these things properly.

When I was a grad student, I more or less figured out how to run benchmarks, collect and record data, document experimental setup, analyze the raw data, and produce meaningful figures on my own. Sure, I had some mentorship from the more senior grad students in my group (and no small amount of pushback from my advisor when a graph would not make sense to him). But in reality, there was very little oversight in terms of how I ran my experiments and collected results. I logged benchmark output to…